The Garden of Forking Paths
by Spinnd
Summary: Alternate stories of series 9. Because there are just too many to pass this up. **Spoilers**, in big flashing neon lights.
1. Chapter 1: Bifurcate

**Disclaimer**: BBC, Kudos; they own it all.

**Warnings**: *Spoilers for 9.8

**A/N**: Too many theories out there _not_ to be used. Wish I could credit, but the discussions have been far too extensive - if your fan theory ends up here, give a shout-out. For this first chapter; starting out with something simple. :) Reviews, comments and ideas welcomed as always.

* * *

The young nurse ushers him in with an uneasy smile, her eyes straying between the guard at the door and the man on the bed. Harry thanks her, and she hastily takes her leave.

The room is quieter now without the hiss of the ventilator, though the monitors still keep watch over their charge. Harry had received the call in the early hours of the morning; had felt a mild surprise that they had decided to inform him of Lucas' stabilized condition.

"I suppose they've got me on regular obs."

The voice is husky - Harry suspects it is from more than just disuse. He stops his scrutiny of the machines and wires still surrounding the bed and regards Lucas with a crooked smile.

"You jumped once." Harry looks discomfited; the smile flickers and, for a moment, bends wrong. He colours his tone with sufficient inquiry when he continues, "it wouldn't be wrong to think you would do it again."

Lucas' laugh is hollow. "Both legs, ribs, a wrist, and a shoulder. I'm not going anywhere, Harry."

"No," Harry allows a full grimace. "No, you're not."

The former agent runs his good hand along the bedrail. Fiddles aimlessly with the bed covers, tugs at the IV line.

"Why didn't you just let me die?"

"I don't know," Harry answers truthfully.

Fingers close into a fist around the sheets, and Lucas glares at the door and the unseen guard behind it. "It would've been kinder to let me bleed out on the streets."

"Yes. But justice has to be served."

It is a cold statement coming from him, Harry knows, and almost cruel. He feels a tug of guilt – kicking a man when he's down, _this_ man, who used to be one of his own, suddenly sits uncomfortably with him.

"Stop that." Lucas snarls, blue eyes sparking silver. "Don't you dare. I don't want your pity."

"What do you want, then?" Harry snaps the words out with uncovered bite.

For a moment Lucas had looked ready to spring, muscles coiled in his neck and teeth bared. But any notion of menace fades on the backdrop of plaster and tubing, and the flash of pain that he determinedly dampens as his movements jar healing bones.

The fight goes out of the younger man in one long exhale.

"Too many things. Too impossible things."

Lucas sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose, jaw muscles tense under cheeks rough with days' old stubble. Harry realises, with a sudden chill, that he looks almost as he had looked the day they got him back (has it really been 3 years?)

"So this is it." Lucas lifts his gaze back up. "An issue for clemency would be impossible, then, given the– given my circumstances?"

Harry goes for a smile again, knowing it would come out grim. "I wouldn't call anything impossible. But yes, very far from likely."

The hand on the bedrail is shaking slightly now, and the monitor beeps a little louder, a little faster.

"So what will it be? Another eight years? Ten? Twenty-five?" Lucas' voice wavers. "You and I, we'd both call it deserved, but I can't, Harry, I- not again. Not again."

_- You know, when you sent Lucas to Moscow, he paid an appalling price._

_- He was an excellent field officer, but that was then. Things are different now._

_- How is he?_

_Who knows? Damaged._

He has slid into the chair by the bed before he realises he's there, and takes Lucas' hand in his. The grip is excruciatingly tight as Lucas latches on, but he returns it, anchors it. Wants to be here for him, for when he was not, all those years ago.

"You want justice?" The smile cracks before it can form, but Lucas tries again. "Life for a life then, for every person I've killed. The figures don't add up, but it's retribution all the same, isn't it?

"So kill me. Kill me now." It is a rictus grin when he finally succeeds.

Harry shakes his head, tries to tighten his already painful grip. They will both have bruises in the morning.

"You know I can't."

The long fingers slacken, signaling an end to the contact. When Harry does not reciprocate, Lucas jerks his hand away with a surprising violence.

"Then why are you here?" He asks coldly.

"Lucas…" Harry feels the edge of uncertainty touch his mind. The loss of contact had shocked an odd pain into him, sharpening now in reaction to this new hostility. He wants to believe this to be salvageable, somehow.

"Lucas," he tries again.

"Go away, Harry." Lucas closes his eyes. "I'm tired."

He lingers by the bedside for the rest of his stay, hoping for a further response, another diatribe, anything that could reestablish even a shadow of their former relationship. If they could only talk, properly. He had meant to, that night, but he has left it now far too late.

Lucas remains silent. So then, does he.

When the hour has passed, the guard enters and formally, politely, informs him that visiting hours are over. He gets up, shaking out stiff legs. Lucas does not stir when he makes his way to the door, motionless under the covers save for the rise and fall of his chest.

Harry takes a look back.

"I'll come see you tomorrow, Lucas."

And walks out without waiting for a reply he knows will not come.


	2. Chapter 2: Bifurcate

**Disclaimer**: BBC, Kudos; they own it all.

**Warnings**: *Spoilers for 9.8

**A/N**: Whoa, guys, thanks for all the reviews! Glad to see everyone enjoying this. Had initially conceived this as a collection of single-chapter shorts, and while there's still an element of that that would be going on, I can't look away now from this AU. You can thank your responses for that. :) So this chapter, originally written as a standalone and can be read as one, will be a continuation of the previous - and will probably spawn about one or two more chapters before I move on to the next story. Meanwhile: enjoy!

* * *

She watches him enter the room, limping, his usual long strides hampered by still-aching limbs.

"Are you all right?" Is her first question, and there is unashamed forthrightness in her tone.

He smiles at her. "Hello Ruth."

It is that lopsided grin again, quirked higher on the left, showing off teeth and laying down cool charm. She turns away to pretend to ignore the display of nonchalance; converts it into a stoop down to reach into her bag and pulls out an envelope.

"From Harry."

Lucas maintains his smile as he takes the postcard. "You will send him my thanks."

The orange sleeves shift as he props his elbows on the table, revealing most of his forearms, and she cannot help but stare at the chafe marks raw on the skin of his wrists where cold metal must usually encircle.

"How are they treating you?" She looks back up at him when she asks, but he had noticed all the same.

"Not badly."

She nods. They still hadn't come forward with the charges against him, despite having already kept him for ten days in the detention wing. She supposes that the recent media storm, however, had at least ensured that the staff here now employed more humane methods.

Handcuffs, though, are still standard procedure.

"You should get that seen to."

Lucas laughs drily. The sound is disconcerting enough to make his guards start.

"It's nothing, really. They're just - " he grimaces, floundering for a moment.

"Too tight?"

She could easily have been asking him about a new pair of shoes. He shakes his head and looks away, his gaze searching.

"Too… familiar."

Ruth nods again; this time, tries to convey her sympathy. She would have gone for "understanding", but is acutely aware that she has _no_ idea what the cuffs, what the incarceration, means to him. To find a freedom once thought lost, and then to lose it again.

She remembers the files. The pictures. The one line blurb where they had glossed over his attempted suicide. Missing pages from his medical notes and blacked-out names of Russian interrogators and FSB doctors. Records bearing the letterheads of Lefortovo, Luschenka, Selekamsk – she knows enough to comfort herself that Belmarsh was nothing compared to them. That if she really wants to, she can convince herself that Lucas, having survived them, could survive this.

"Ruth?"

His voice startles her, and she flushes with the sudden realisation of her preceding silence.

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

"How's the..." She gestures at her own shoulder.

"Stiff." He rotates his right arm to show its reduced range. The other breaks had healed relatively well, but the damage to his right shoulder had been extensive, and had required several repairs and long painful weeks of rehab. "Though it means I get to sit out of basketball. Everyone expects me to be good at it, my height and everything. Hate it."

"Tariq's just joined the amateur league."

She smiles at the warm sound of his laugh. "Has he now? Good on him."

"Never hears the end of it from Dmitri."

A shadow falls across the table.

"Miss Harrington." The guard indicates toward the clock: half-past five.

"Right, yes." The screech of her chair is loud in the small room. "I've to got to drop by Tesco's on the way home. My turn to cook tonight."

Lucas remains seated and smiles up at her. "Worked out well in the end, did it?"

She huffs in fleeting amusement. "No thanks to you."

"You can return the favour someday."

"Someday." The word sits heavy in her chest. "Take care, Lucas."

"Goodbye, Ruth."


	3. Chapter 3: Bifurcate

**Disclaimer**: BBC, Kudos; they own it all. Any resemblance to real life events are mostly coincidental.

**Warnings**: *Spoilers for 9.8

**Summary**: Wherein there are rumors of a Russian spy ring, and a deal is cut.

**A/N**: Thanks everyone, for the reviews and your patience. Hope you enjoy this next bit.

* * *

In the weeks following the Albany debacle, the cables had been swamped with enough chatter about Russian sleepers on British soil to warrant twice-weekly visits by the higher-ups of MI5 to their department. Among other more routine threats to national security.

He had taken to sneaking around the corridors of the Grid then, in a way not entirely left behind with his SBS past, and had been privy to many a sensitive conversation behind closed doors – something Harry quite possible had known about, though he had never called him out on it. He had been quite certain that no one else had spotted him on his eavesdropping jaunts either, save the one time he had popped up behind a desk and scared Tariq half to death.

Yet here he is, on an odd blue-sky morning, standing guard by the door of the Governor's office as four men barter with one life.

Oh yes, Harry had _definitely_ known.

"How do I know you won't back out when this is all over?"

"You don't." Waldon's smile is razor sharp. "But at the moment, you have little say in the matter."

"I could say no." Lucas answers with his own grin that borders on feral, and it unnerves him a little, this new wolf-like appearance his friend's profile seems to have taken on, lean and hungry, his uniform hanging loosely on his frame.

"Do you really want to spend the rest of your life here?" The director general leans forward, placing both arms on the table. "We can arrange to make it very difficult for you."

"Really, Theodore?" Harry Pearce growls. Waldon smirks and settles back in his seat.

Lucas strains a laugh through his teeth - "What's this, then, Mutt and Jeff?" - and does not seem to notice the accompanying twitches of nervous energy in his fingers.

The man is slipping, Dmitri realises. After thirty days in this place. (He does not want to think of thirty years.)

Harry does notice, however; he can see the lines deepening across his boss's forehead.

"Think of this as a service to Queen and country," Governor Regg supplies from behind his desk, " to make up for past '_mistakes'_. Your last hurrah."

There is a noticeable pause before Lucas deigns a reply: "How long?"

"Two years, maybe three. No more than five." Harry answers, and Waldon nods.

"In exchange for your intel on our suspected Russian spies: legal indemnity, a nice payout, and that one-way trip to wherever you like; New Zealand, perhaps. Complete with a new identity, of course."

He is really beginning to dislike Waldon.

"Who will know?"

"Not many." Harry manages to get a word back in. "But those who do will keep a tight rein on things here. We won't let things get out of hand."

He thinks it's a reasonably straightforward choice; and apparently, so does Lucas. At the shrug of acceptance, Governor Regg retrieves a folder from his drawer and places a form in front of the former agent.

"We will send in an advisor to help you with your preparations," Waldon says. "You remember your Russian?"

"How could I forget?" Lucas runs a hand through disheveled hair and indicates for a pen.

"Good. Sign here."

He meets Lucas' gaze for a second before his friend drops it back down, and something unnamable roils up from deep within his gut. Realises that he is watching Lucas scratch out his signature on the dotted line – sees, out of the corner of his eye, that Harry is not.

There is a sharp clap when Waldon closes the folder. "Not too difficult, was it, Mr. North? Or do you go by Bateman now?" Chuckles at his own joke. "No matter. You won't be either very soon. Harry, if you will."

Harry removes a large manila envelope from his briefcase and empties the contents out onto the table, and Dmitri cannot help but stare. There, in trinkets and photographs and forged documents, are the marks of an entire fabricated life. All thirty-seven years of it.

Governor Regg rises from his chair and straightens his suit.

"Welcome to Belmarsh, Mr. Ruzhnov."


	4. Chapter 4: Bifurcate

**Disclaimer**: BBC, Kudos; they own it all.

**Warnings**: *Spoilers for 9.8

**Summary**: It's taken Beth seven years to come to this.

**A/N**: Thanks everyone, for the reviews and your patience with the extremely slow updates. Last chapter for this thread - and have decided to leave the resolution open-ended as to whether Lucas is eventually released (but I'm personally quite decided on how it ends, at least in my head). :) Enjoy.

* * *

She had watched the guards escort him into the room from across a plexiglass pane as she fielded the governor's questions and smiled at his witticisms. Harry Pearce has finally passed the buck, the governor had asked, and she had nodded, and coaxed forth another smile, and had no intentions of telling him otherwise.

Sitting here now, across from a man she hadn't seen in years, she allows herself a brief flash of doubt at the wisdom of her request, and Harry's own acquiescence to letting her visit him (in all honesty, she's not entirely sure why she had wanted to see him in the first place.)

She becomes aware that he is watching her watch him; noticing her notice the changes in amongst his still-recognizability.

"Mr Ruzhnov," she says, flicking a look at the two men by the door, and sees him curl his lip slightly at that. "Joanne Olson. Supreme Court."

"Miss Olson. To what do I owe this pleasure?" The Russian accent is unsurprisingly smooth, the rumbling burr she remembers from long ago still present, only now altered to fit foreign cadences.

"I have come about your appeal," she says.

As his brow furrows, she sees a new scar at his left temple that sliced vertically upwards to disappear into his greying hairline.

"My appeal." His features smoothen out, but she knows he is stalling for time, inquiring.

"I know James normally handles your case," she sees his eyebrow twitch at the use of Harry's middle name, "but in light of my recent promotion, he has assigned me to take over some of his clients from him."

His smile, when he attempts it, looks odd, unused.

"Can't imagine why you would," he says, with that familiar head tilt of his, though she has remind herself that it isn't Lucas – it probably isn't even John, anymore, sitting in front of her.

"Have you come with good news or bad news?" He continues.

"We have been able to move things along," she maneuvers, working through her spiel as she would with any asset. "There have been delays, but we are confident that you'll be cleared of the charges against you. Things just need a little more time."

His head drops at that, shoulders hunching, elongating a line of stress down his neck, and she watches him struggle to regain his equilibrium.

"семь леты." His words are muffled in his chest, but she still catches them, and remembers just in time to feign ignorance of the language. When he looks up again, his eyes are sharp.

"Seven years," he repeats, and his voice drops a wrong inflection through clenched teeth, but it is subtle, and the guards are bored enough to most likely have missed it. Still, his slip has the hair on the back of her neck bristling.

"I know we promised - " she gestures meaninglessly, because she isn't quite sure what exactly _had _been promised, "but I wanted to notify you. Of our progress."

She leans forward, determined that he catches her emphasis when she tells him: "We _are_ making progress."

He scrubs tiredly at his face. The cuffs clink noisily against the metal top as he drops his hands back down; she thinks he looks ready to fall apart, but he accommodates, with what little he has left, as he'd been doing all these years, and returns his gaze to look at her straight on.

"You know, I thought they had forgotten about me."

That there is hardly a trace of bitterness in his words only increases her discomfort. It had taken her seven years to reconcile herself with his betrayal – of his country, of his people, of _them_ – and where she had in the beginning vacillated between sorrow and revulsion, now, she thinks she is approaching something akin to sympathy.

As if she hadn't made bad choices as Section Chief. And as if she herself hadn't been given a second chance to make things right (everyone deserves a second chance – she has learned that well now.)

"No one's left here," he murmurs as he pulls at the metal around his wrists, "I was wondering why..."

His meaning is all too clear. The last Russian spy had been deported in a swap almost a year ago.

She feels suddenly, inexplicably, angry.

"We're doing our best," she manages, feeling a flush creep up behind her ears. "James sends his apologies as well."

That elicits a genuine smirk of amusement; for that alone, she justifies having made it up.

"Tell him, it'll be a while before I see him in New Zealand."

"You can tell him yourself when you get there."

She gathers her folders, rustling the forged documents within. He watches her intently, and the weight of unasked questions is thick in the air between them.

"I shall see you again?" He folds his hands in front of him, and his knuckles clench white under the skin.

She smiles, and hopes it looks reassuring. "You shall."

He looks almost relieved. "And you will thank your colleagues for me?"

_And send them my greetings, and tell them that I'm still here, _she almost hears him say, _that I'm still alive._

"I will."

She grasps his hand as she bids him farewell. Holds on for what must be suspiciously long, but she needs this to convince herself that he's going to be all right, that in the end, he can still emerge intact from under years of wearing another's skin.

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr Ruzhnov."

He is first to release the grip.

"Till next time, Ms Olson."

_Fin_.


End file.
